Ounces of Fun
by big tears
Summary: Hell hath no fury like Maris Crane...


Disclaimer: ... I wish I owned Niles. I really do (he's a wonderfully sexy character). In fact, I wish I owned Daphne, too, so that I could force them together and spare poor Niles oodles of angst... But I don't own anything. This computer isn't even mine. So please don't try to accuse me of plagiarism -- I'm sad enough, already.

**A/N:** Well, I decided to go through and revise all my fics. If this is your first time reading this fic, I hope you like it. If you've read it before, try to spot what I changed. *wink*

***

He hates it when she looks at him this way, eyes wide and lips set into a permanent grimace, her eyebrows lowering slightly and the miniscule lines in her face spreading like a crack in a sheet of glass. She's like a sketch, everything from the toe of her stilettos to her tightly arranged hair sharp and angled. He _hates_ it when she gets like this.

There are times when she drums her fingers on the surface of the table, the banister, the marble bench in the garden. Her gleaming fingernails forever clicking, the intention behind each motion and sound creating pressure in his ears. She doesn't stop until his eye starts twitching, and then she smirks. A trademark that she is about to exit the surrounding area... He ends up calling the police, praying she hasn't gotten lost on her way to Nieman-Marcus. They find his call slightly amusing and incredibly nonsensical.

She doesn't come home. He lays in bed, staring up at the ceiling and wishing he had the comfort of knowing that his wife was in the room across the hall, her thin hand clutched around the pistol under her pillow. But she isn't. He doesn't have any bit of reassurance, and he drifts to sleep through bouts of indigestion, trying to slip around the horrible nightmares he's had since their last anniversary.

He awakes the next morning to find her staring down at him, a hand promptly forcing her fingers into contact with the nightstand. His muscles jump at her command -- nervous system giving up all control in her presence. She gives him the look, angry that he neglected his husbandly duties and didn't go after her. He tries to apologize, to make amends and quell the episode that is no doubt building up inside her.

Although small, she is a volcano.

His words do nothing for her, and the clicking becomes more intense. Her eyebrows lower even further than usual.

She screams.

Torrents of insults fly from her mouth, things that would make normal men cringe, but he sits there, taking every last exclamation in with him and burying them all in the recesses of his thoughts. He's staring up at her, nodding and commenting and attempting to explain himself in all the right places, but his thoughts are not on his maniacal wife.

He risks a glance at the wedding ring on his left hand.

Eventually, her shouts die down and she composes herself, leaving his room as quietly as one can expect of a woman who has temporarily run out of things to say. He stares at the wall, and wonders if he should have followed her. There is always a chance that she wouldn't have said things that were so offensive...

But the chance is very slim, and he nods to himself, as if to say that he did the right thing. He doesn't know for sure, though. He never does.

He sits and stares at the road as he takes in the NPR broadcast on his way to work, the background noises of people, ideas, and the general public going about their daily routines buzzing in his ears. He is trying to focus on the news anchor's voice instead of the one in his head.

He doesn't want to listen to the dismaying monologue of left-handed compliments she delivered on his behalf. He'll save that for later, although he knows he should dismiss it now. He can never bring himself to do it when he should... He always manages to wait until his self esteem is at a very low point. 

When her verbal bombing hits his subconscious, there won't be any side effects. It'll happen, and he'll ignore it -- as though he has no idea what she seems to think of him. He'll brush it off as though he doesn't care.

The side effects from lying to himself will come much later.

***


End file.
